Tumblin' tumbleweeds - Good drought crop

Anything that blocks the wind is host to tumbleweed piles in Wildorado in Oldham County, a mild infestation compared to descriptions of Dallam and Hartley counties to the north.

No, we haven't got enough rain the last three years to grow crops without irrigation or even much grass for cattle, but Lord, the tumbleweeds are crazy.

We've got them piled up against everything from bushes to fences out in Wildorado. And driving I-40 on a windy day can be like a bad video game with the bad guys flying by everywhere.

But Texas A&M AgriLife Extension reported things were really bad in Dallam and Hartley counties, so I called County Extension Agent Mike Bragg to find out just how bad it was.

He said in Dalhart there are a few, but things go down hill west toward Texline and Clayton.

"If you have a home out there, you're dealing with them every time the wind blows," he said. "I've heard some stories about people who couldn't get to their houses, and that means there's probably people who can't get out. That's not only a nuisance. It's a serious situation."

In the weekly AgriLife weather roundup, the description for the Panhandle includes Dallam and Hartley counties.

"The tumbleweed problem was expected to last for some time. County road crews were staying busy keeping rural roads open so residents could get to their homes and care for livestock."

The people in Texline are besieged.

“The folks on the north and west sides of town, most of them have their backyards packed,” said City Manager Jon Rose. “If they have a four-foot fence, the yard is filled to four feet deep.”

The predicament of what to do with the invaders is a new one to Rose who arrived in Texas in August from Michigan.

“My idea of tumbleweeds was kind of a romantic one of them drifting across the prairie,” he said. “But they’re definitely a problem.”

Some agriculture producers are trying to mow or "shred" the prickly balls of dried up Russian thistles.

"If they get tangled up in fences and pile up, they can pull it down," Bragg said.

Apparently, the weeds grew in grassland that hasn't been grazed in years, not farm land, before dying and being blown by the wind, aided by rains in September that were too late for crops but not the weeds.

And the future holds little change in the weather pattern that helped create the situation. The U.S. Drought Monitor forecast says the drought will continue or intensify in the Panhandle at least through April.

In the meantime, the struggle continues.

"People are really thinking there must be something they can do with these," Bragg said. "But I haven't seen anybody making them into something."